To understand why African countries are often poor, you need to first understand how European countries got rich, and where they got their wealth from.

You see, the Western countries benefited greatly not just from looting their former colonies to build their own countries, but also by establishing a favourable terms of trade for themselves, whereby their former colonies sell raw material and agricultural products at very cheap prices to them, only for them to modify it into technological products and turn around and sell at exorbitant prices to their former colonies.

Also most of the developed countries in the West did not just achieve high economic growth over the past 500 years simply because they are much more productive than the rest of the world.

Rather what these countries (many of which were very small in terms of population) has done over the years is that whenever they are reaching the limit of their economic growth capacity, they will reinvent a new scheme to keep economic growth going.

Remember European countries started out with the Age of discovery (1490–1522). The discovery of new trade routes led to a boost in trade, industry and employment in Europe, at a time when Europeans were just coming out of the dark ages.

Now when the economic boost they got from the Age of discovery was beginning to die down, and Europe was saddled with a lot of unemployed people, Europeans reinvigorated their economies by conquering new lands all over the world ( US, Canada, Australia, South America etc).

With new land, they set up plantations in the new world, and quickly realized that they needed cheap labor to work on the plantations, so they instituted the trans-Atlantic slave trade to bring in cheap labor that was needed.

Finally when plantation agriculture was going down due to the abolition of slavery, Europeans again reinvented themselves by taking advantage of their superior military technology and colonizing most of Africa and Asia, and siphoning resources from the colonies without paying for them.

When the two world wars devastated Europe and the Europeans realized that they can no longer hold on to their colonies, they were forced to grant independence to their colonies, but they quickly created a new system of immigration, taking advantage of all the land they acquired during the Age of discovery.

Having built world class economies and cities, they realized that they could easily attract the well to do and most educated people in their former colonies to immigrate to their countries and continue the centuries of economic growth.

Many Western countries established an immigration system based on either a point system or economic means. For over 80 years, most Western countries have used this system to poach the most talented and most well-to-do citizens of their former colonies into their countries to sustain high economic growth. Meanwhile this system has robbed the former colonies of their richest citizens and bright minds, causing brain drain to the former colonies, but supplying the Western countries with well qualified labor who got educated and trained by tax payers in their countries of origin.

I have reconstructed all this history to show that the Europeans have always taken advantage of other countries to sustain their economic growth.

So in conclusion, whereas the rest of the world ( former colonies) tried to grow their economies from within, and by their own efforts, the Western countries always depended on outsiders through schemes like slavery, colonization, and immigration to achieve high economic growth.

This is how Western countries got rich, and this is how they have sustained their riches.

Now you can see that in the process of becoming rich, the Western countries used Africans and other regions to reach were they are. Now Africans are trying to develop by themselves without exploiting any other region, so do you think development will be that fast? Certainly not! The Africans do not have other continents to exploit for assist, and on top, they were the ones who were exploited, and are still being exploited, so they need to first “dig themselves out of the hole”, before they can even think of developing. So people who always want to know why African countries are poor, or why they are developing slowly, the above is the explanation.

https://www.quora.com/Why-are-African-countries-often-poor

Don't leave out the selfish & greedy leaders.
When the rest of the world made donations to Mozambique recently, during the hurricane that rendered many people homeless, greedy politicians ceased the moment & stole that too. How are we supposed to progress when the people put in charge of our welfare are kleptomaniacs whose only agenda is to milk the coffers dry, so can go beg the West again for something else to steal? It's a vicious cycle & it's tiring. Africans are their own worst enemy.

Ask the poster on quora if it was the Europeans that stopped Africans from exploring new trade routes during the Dark ages.

Also ask him about the indigenous Africans that enabled slavery by betraying their kinsmen out of greed and selfish interest. A phenomenon still present till this very day.

Africa is poor because the typical way of life of an average African is skewed around poverty. If it was not, the Africans would have been way more advanced than we are today.

XhosaNostra:
Don't leave out the selfish & greedy leaders.
When the rest of the world made donations to Mozambique recently, during the hurricane that rendered many people homeless, greedy politicians ceased the moment & stole that too. How are we supposed to progress when the people put in charge of our welfare are kleptomaniacs whose only agenda is to milk the coffers dry, so can go beg the West again for something else to steal? It's a vicious cycle & it's tiring. Africans are their own worst enemy.

Our best brains are leaving the continent, the remaining ones are overshadowed by mediocres. With mediocres at the helm of affairs, stealing will continue.

That you poor doesn't mean others are.

Interesting write up but to be honest, our selfish & greedy leaders are the ones keeping us in this situation. Every Africa leaders are not after the affair of their country or welfare of their citizens but for themselves, family and few friends.

So pathetic Africa leaders are vampires and demons.

Osagyefo98:
That you poor doesn't mean others are.

My dear, I'm not poor, neither do I consider myself wealthy at the moment. We are not talking about individuals but about a continent and countries within it.

I'm sorry, but you need to work on your ability to process and comprehend information.

naijanative:


My dear, I'm not poor, neither do I consider myself wealthy at the moment. We are not talking about individuals but about a continent and countries within it.

I'm sorry, but you need to work on your ability to process and comprehend information.

I read your submission quite well but there are things we have to agree and those to discard. Everything shouldn't be a subject of discussion when same people are co-authors of their own misfortune.


Work on your mentality also.

Osagyefo98:
That you poor doesn't mean others are.

This is one of the reasons Africans are poor , they are always living in denial instead of learning and planning

FarahAideed:


This is one of the reasons Africans are poor , they are always living in denial instead of learning and planning

When presented with a blank cheque, your theory of Africa will change.

Leave above denial, you especially

Osagyefo98:
That you poor doesn't mean others are.

Selfish african

naijanative:


Our best brains are leaving the continent, the remaining ones are overshadowed by mediocres. With mediocres at the helm of affairs, stealing will continue.

Exactly!

So why doesn’t Africa find a way to attract the best of the best and grow their own economies? The UAE did it, so why can’t Africans do it?

NB** The Asians did it also. What’s stopping Africans from copying the same template?

Poverty of the mind precedes poverty of the body. And poverty of the spirit precedes both.

Africa promotes mediocrity.